


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Capital Wasteland

by DeltaJones



Category: Fallout 3, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Genre: Adams Style, Brotherhood of Steel - Freeform, Capital Wasteland, Douglas Adams, Fallout 3 - Freeform, Fallout 4 - Freeform, Fallout New Vegas - Freeform, Galaxy News Radio, Gen, Literature, Lucas Simms - Freeform, Maxson - Freeform, Megaton, Not Fallout 4 Lore Friendly, Not Lore Friendly, Sarah Lyons - Freeform, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Freeform, Three Dog - Freeform, Wadsworth - Freeform, Washington DC, Wasteland Survival Guide, dogmeat - Freeform, moira brown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-27 09:46:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6279598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeltaJones/pseuds/DeltaJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Definitive Guide to Understanding, Evading, and/or Annihilating any and all Dangers Hiding in the DC Hellhole</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. for Lucas and Moria

The following dedication appears in the book:

for Lucas and Moria  
and all the other Wastelanders for  
water, bullets, and a tin roof

* * *

 

Far out in the barely mapped, unfashionable backend of Brahman wastes of Maryland lies a once beautiful, but unprotected, green-tinted city. From this city, a child of the atom known only by a name given him by the guardsman of Hell set out in search of his father. Within the first weeks of his search, the child realized how small his world truly was.

This child has, or rather had, a problem, which was this: most of his accomplishments and those of his fellow tinmen were so far in reverse of that which the child expected that he sought to go out and do something productive about that. But regardless of the number of steps he took forward, there was always something to guide him several steps backwards, to the side, or even straight up into low orbit around his sad shell of a planet. 

He was increasingly of the opinion that he’d made a big mistake in leaving the relative safety and isolation of the vast, underground Vault from whence he’d come. Yes, his eviction was rather sudden and the three men he murdered that day were certainly a mark against him in the Overseer’s big book of bad, but the choice was hardly there: run or die. Much as a comic once asked, he had to choose in quite a bit of haste: tea and cake or death. 

And then, many weeks into his journey, more than ten years since the voice of the Capital had been set up near a microphone to tell people how nice it would be to chill the ever-loving fuck out for a change, the child finally lost. Every ideal wrung, hanged to dry; every iota of his former self blew away at ground zero of his own, personal, nuclear detonation. At this point, a Vault Dweller died. 

This is not his story. 

Rather, this is the story of the immediate fallout of that death and the Wanderer that rose from the ashes.

This is also the story of a book; a book called the Wasteland Survival Guide - not an American book, never published when there was such a nation as America, and until long after the Great Atomic War, never considered much a necessity by Americans.

Nevertheless, a piece of literature valued by all people in the wastes of that once powerful nation. In fact, it was probably the most remarkable work of published literature until almost three centuries after its first copies had been hand-written by the original editor and the publishing house in New New York City began to, once again, produce bound books by the dozen. 

More copies of the Wasteland Survival Guide have been made than any other book, written or duplicated - and the helpful, informative nature coupled with easy writing make the recorded advice flow from page to Waster with no lost of knowledge. How else would anyone out there know how to prepare Mirelurk stew?

But enough about the bloody book. This story revolves around the book’s chief research editor and his terrible, tragic first year away from the Vault into which no one ever enters and from which no one ever leaves. Besides that, the story begins very simply. 

It begins with a house.

* * *

 

“You open this door right this minute, punk, or I’ll break it down!”

Nearly the whole town, minus the self-proclaimed overseer and the uncaring mercenaries paid to watch the horizon, were perched around the creaky front porch of a particular tin and steel house. 

This particular house had stood vacant for more than seven years until a young man had come wandering into the small, thriving metropolis of metal walkways and social gatherings around the undetonated atomic bomb that had dug a crater into the Earth so long ago. Upon entering town, and following a rather entertaining but awkward shouting match between the Sheriff and some loudmouth, the young man disarmed the ever-present danger with little more than a pair of pliers and the A-OK with one Lucas Simms. 

Right now, that very Sheriff was beating away at the young man’s door, insisting that he show himself. The robotic butler that once answered only to the former tenant and sheriff could be heard along with the fierce barking of the young man’s dog. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Sheriff,” the butler intoned in a crisp, foreign accent. “The master is not taking callers at this time.”

“Tin can,” Simms said, “if you don’t open this door on the count of five, I’m breaking it down. You get that boy down here and you tell him to bring a damn good explanation about last night with him.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake. I shall make the attempt, sir.”

The robot floated away from the thin door toward the second floor bedroom. The door was closed, but unlocked. Inside, the one human occupant of the humble home sat up in bed, tugging boots over his heavily altered Vault 101 jumpsuit. 

“Wadsworth,” the young man said.

“Sir, I’m afraid Mayor Simms is quite insistent on your presence.”

“I can hear that,” he said as he finished tying the laces and knotting them in such a way as they were unlikely to come free. “Tell Simms I’ll be down in a minute.”

Down the stairs, a noted lack of the drum-like beating on the tin door caused the young man to speed his preparations. An armored, blue leather jumpsuit adorned the young man’s body, protecting him from much of what the weather could throw at him. He wore a nasty looking revolver on his hip and slung a rifle over each arm that left both free to manage other tasks. 

From his belt hung a few anti-radiation chems and stimpaks, as well as assorted bits of hardware and tools for making repairs or ammunition on the road. All in all, the man was armed for a small, out-of-the-way war. 

“Wadsworth, I left money in the desk upstairs. Keep Dogmeat fed while I’m out, got it?”

“Certainly, sir! I shall maintain his current diet and walk as needed!”

“Thanks. I should be back some time soon…”

The young man took a fixed blade from his boot and etched “21:6” into the woodwork handle of his revolver. Admiring his handiwork and pleased of the condition of both knife and gun, he returned both to their place and opened the front door. 

“Sheriff,” he said.

“Kid,” the Sheriff said sharply, “you have a lot of explaining to do.”

You see, or perhaps you don’t, not being part of the community at Megaton, Maryland; last night, the young man, the “Kid from Vault 101,” had a long visit to the town saloon; one owned and operated by the most detestable man this side of the DC ruins. Colin Moriarty is not a man to step over, as he’ll certainly take such an action to heart and make your next several years quite hard in the wastes. 

The night began with a drink and a conversation with Gob, the bartender and effective slave to the tavern’s owner. The young man slumped over the front of the bar, his back to the door, and droned on about this or that. 

“Gob, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.”

Gob, having taken a liking to the young man for the simple kindness of not being revolted on sight on meeting a Ghoul for the first time, listened with long-earned patience and the empathy not to say or add anything unless invited to specifically. The whole affair was horribly tragic, but not unexpected out in the wastes. 

Last week, barely a month into the young man’s new life out in the Capital, he found his dad after all that time searching from one end of the wastes to the other. Long story short, the moment he and dear, old dad start working together on his dead mother’s lifelong goal, some armored weirdos calling themselves the United States military show up and start shooting. How the young man described it, his father died of several gunshot wounds and a dose of radiation over 800 Roentgens (far above death level).

He’d also been drinking all night. Gob delivered what he asked for, but could tell it hadn’t started in the saloon, or even at a decent hour today. 

“God-Grod-G-Gob,” the young man stuttered over his drink, “pour me another.”

“Look, kid,” Gob said. “You really don’t need another. I think it’s time you went home, alright?”

Which is when the owner walked in from the back room.

In his almost cultured tone, Colin Moriarty said, “What’s this now about sending one of our best customers of the night home, Mr. Gob?”

Gob pleaded, “Sir, any more and the kid might not make it home.”

“Nonsense. Pour our patron another and be sure to collect all fifteen Caps for the service.”

Shots of the alcohol, if you choose to call the trade goods of the Moriarty Saloon such, were barely worth the cost of production. Such is the judgement of those forced to drink their fill of fermented mouldy vegetables. Note: an abridged version of the Guide had been produced in California in 2283 which stated most alcohol produced east of the Colorado River was, in simple terms, rotgut. Whether this is true is not a matter the Guide Editors wasted time on; as most alcohol produced west of the Mississippi River has the consistency of soggy Radstag droppings.

“I can’t serve him anymore,” Gob said.

Moriarty leaned over the Ghoul, not caring about his personal space in the slightest. “You listen to be, zombie,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I fucking own your rotting ass until you pay me your loan. Until then, you pour this fucking degenerate alcohol until he dies and you take what he owes me of his cold, dead-”

A chunk of Moriarty’s right ear vanished with a puff of air moving through a steam pipe across the bartop. It took from the moment Moriarty let go of Gob to the pants-shitting reaction he had when he saw the young man’s obscene homemade rifle to realize that hole in his earlobe had been made by the railroad spike embedded in the back wall of the saloon. 

The young man vaulted over the bar, taking a collection of glassware and varying volumes of alcohol with him right into the owner’s chest. Both fell and the young man dragged Moriarty up screaming.

“Out!” The young man’s demand echoed throughout the tavern as he dragged its owner through the door. 

The bar fell silent except for the sweet Jazz courtesy of Galaxy News Radio, the radio having been moved higher to boost the signal reception. Of the few people there that night, Lucy West left her Brahman steak and Nuka Cola to follow the crowd out; Nova, another of Moriarty’s ‘indentures’, peered over the second floor railing to see where the patrons were going; and Gob had barely moved except to prop himself on the far wall and watch. Nova called to him as she left, spurring him to follow. 

“Move!” The young man pushed Moriarty down ramps at his back. The older man tripped and hit railings, but the kid kept at him and kept him moving. He screamed at Moriarty to keep him going. To the surprise of the many onlookers in town, Moriarty both did as he was told and screamed for anyone to help.

Moriarty and the crowd behind him were halfway to the bottom before Lucas Simms came out of his quiet home to see what was bothering his town.

It shocked him, the hardened former Regulator turned town Sheriff, to find the silent, intelligent kid from the Vault threatening the self-proclaimed fiscal owner of Megaton and getting his way. His amusement and shock fell away fast as it’d come and he ran over, Chinese assault rifle out and ready. 

The young man kicked Moriarty, sending him right into the radioactive muck in the lowest pocket of the Megaton crater, right up against the now dead atomic bomb. In his drunken escapade, the kid was thankful that the nice, older couple that ran the creepy church in town weren’t out at this hour. It would have been a real shame to interrupt one of their fucking cultish sermons with such a violent act. 

The workers and patrons of the saloon, along with many people still wandering around and socializing in Megaton at the last time, gathered to watch the only real entertainment any had gotten in years of living there. 

The young man had his foot in the soft of Moriarty’s back, keeping the man from crawling out of the deadly hold he’d found himself in.

“Tell Gob you’re sorry,” he managed to say through a broken, drunken voice.

“Fuck you,” Moriarty yelled.”

The young man picked up his book and kicked down on the older man. Something cracked and Moriarty screamed in agony.

“Wrong answer,” he said more soberly than before. 

“Pull that foot back,” came the strong, deep voice of Lucas Simms.

The kid didn’t answer, actually managing to dig the sole of his boot deeper into the enemy’s back.

“Boy, I like you a hell of a lot for disarming that thing,” referring to the bomb before them, “but in my town you listen to me. Now you get your foot off that man.”

Almost tempted to ignore the modern cowboy Sheriff again, the kid did as he was told.

“Now lower that… gun and we can talk this out.”

Again, the kid did as ordered. He dropped the gun, catching it by the strap and holding it level with the ground.

“Sheriff,” the kid said, “it it’s all the same to you, I’m going home for the night. Drank too much.”

Simms almost didn’t let it go with that, but the way the kid set down the haphazard firearm and by the tears streaming down his face, he just waved. 

“Kid, you report to me by noon tomorrow or I’m coming for you. Got me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Which leads us to the current situation.

“Sheriff, come in.”

Simms pushed the door open, leaving the crowd to wonder what would be said within the house. Too bad for them. 

“Son, you’d better have one hell of an explanation as to that little tantrum last night.”

“Sheriff,” the young man said slowly and reverently. “I didn’t like the way Moriarty was treating his employees. He’s lucky you stopped me from putting a bullet in that little Boston-born twat’s head.”

“Way I heard it, it was a railspike.”

“That too. I’m leaving, Simms. Dogmeat and Wadsworth are here, so treat them well. I made arrangements with Jenny down at the Lantern to see that Dogmeat eats and Moria is going to watch my house for me.”

“You planning on being gone long?”

“I need to get out of town for a while. Place is giving me cabin fever. Moria has some work for me, so I’ll be gone a few months. Don’t let Moriarty take revenge on Gob or Nova for last night either. He lays a finger on either of them, tell him I’m coming back and I’m gonna’ personally hang him from his own fucking bar.”

“After last night, that threat might hold. I saw Doc Church at work putting what was left of the bastard’s ear back on.”

“Funny,” the young man said, “I was aiming for his head.”

Simms responded hesitantly. “Boy, you have issues.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Tell anyone who asks that I’m on vacation or something. And don’t let anyone in my place who’ll wreck the place. Dogmeat’ll kill if he doesn’t like who’s in my house.”

“What sort of work are you doing for Miss Brown?”

“She’s writing a book, but needed someone to research some topics for her out in the field. Figure it’ll get my mind off of… I’ve had a bad month. Just need the time away from people to sort it all out.”

The young man clammed up, turning to finishing his preparations. Simms, knowing the signs, opted to leave without saying much else. Once Simms had gone, no doubt to disperse the crowd, the young man gathered the few remaining items he’d need and locked the door behind him. 

“Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Capital Wasteland? Have to do something about the title.”


	2. For Harith and Roe

The following dedication appears in the book:  
  
For Harith and Roe  
And all the trade caravans  
For services rendered

* * *

 

The Capital Wasteland is big. Like… really big. And if you’re reading this, you almost certainly don’t understand how vastly, maddeningly, stupidly big this slice of Heaven actually is from end to end. Like, you might think that it’s one hell of a walk from your house in Springvale to Megaton to see Doc Church, but that’s peanuts to the Wasteland. And I haven’t even brought up Big Apple or Boston.

From time to time, you might have met some of the terribly few that often, and often to their personal peril, leave the confines of the relatively safe settlements and venture out into the wastes. For now, I speak of none other than the Canterbury Commons Trade Caravan Company.

The CCTCC has been one of the longest lasting, and certainly one of the most powerful, organizations in the Capital, if not the entire eastern seaboard. Even the Crimson Caravan back out west didn’t outlast the century; more than a hundred years of service to New California only to be done in on someone’s personal vendetta. Par for the course for the wastes, which makes the CCTCC all the more impressive for what they have accomplished in only 20 years.

In the opinion of the majority of the Guide Editors, their success comes from three major aspects of their business, their abilities.  
First, these brave traders are willing to run circles around the Capital and shoot down any freelance sharecroppers (read: raiders and/or slavers) they meet on the way just to bring people the finest in anything their little hearts can handle. Ever see Crow’s men shoot down a Super Mutant? No? That’s because they cleaned out their route in the first year of the CCTCC’s operation and kept it holy.

What about the other caravans, you might ask, Between the Brotherhood of Steel’s continued support of the free peoples of the Capital Wasteland and the Enclave soldiers that integrated into their system, the routes are clean and safe. Remember the year the Lone Wanderer stopped shooting at Hellfire armor troops? Consider how safe the caravans are and wonder about that again.

Second, the caravans used to be the only way to communicate in the wastes in both directions with any reliability. Say it took Doc Hoff’s people two weeks to make their way around their way. Old Hoff could pick up news and mail from Canterbury Commons, get word of this or that from Paradise Falls, deliver and gather mail from Arefu and back down south-east to Megaton and Rivet City. By the time he makes it back up around Canterbury, the latest news, besides any emergency broadcasts from Three-Dog or Miss Agatha, have been delivered and a new cycle is rolling out.

Back around 2280, that was about as fast as it got and people were pleased that word got around as quickly as it did. Nowadays, now that almost every major settlement has some sort of long-distance two-way communications setup, this aspect of the CCTCC is almost totally obsolete. But the caravans still like their gossip and are still a source that would be unheard of if they just threw in the towel.

The third, and perhaps most important, aspect of the caravan’s success and power is money. Nothing says the Capital Wasteland needs a united caravan company like cold, hard Caps. That’s where the story really began.

There is little to say about the CCTCC’s mysterious benefactor other than the nameless, sexless oddity is wealthier than Allistair Tenpenny, may his dark, festering soul rot in the hell he wrought for himself.

One day following one of the many battles between the Mechanist and the AntAgonizer in Canterbury Commons, this stranger approached Roe, the unofficial leader of the caravans, with a proposition. A massive pile of Caps was invested in each old caravan and they all started up with half a dozen Brahman and started hiring out reformed Talon Company mercenaries as security and a permanent protective presence.

Now the CCTCC, consisting of the chief operating officer, Roe, and the renamed Talon Security Company, patrols the wastes bringing food, weapons, armor, commodities and sweet, fresh Aqua Pura to all for trade and barter.

And that’s just the history of the company. Cross this article with that on custom weapons and new farming technology down from up north and you’ll see why the Wasteland hardly deserves the name anymore.

* * *

The morning brought change to Megaton. The proprietor of the town’s general store had a new assistant, Colin Moriarty had a new and profound fear of crucifixion, and a certain tin and metal house was short one human occupant.

A quick stop to see Moira Brown and get the first wave of his assignments; another stop in the center of town to toss a few Caps to the Lantern and the young man was on his merry way out into the wastes.

With no one to talk to for the long walk, he settled for scanning the horizon and listening to the increasingly clear reception of Galaxy News Radio. He could hear the actual newscasts now and the music wasn’t bad. After hearing Civilization and Anything Goes for the fiftieth time, it can get tiring; but damned if anyone’s willing to complain about there being a local music station.

Raiders patrolled the collapsed overpass lanes and Super Mutants stumbled across the outermost skeletal buildings of DC proper, so he avoided both by sticking to the outcroppings of rock and corpses of trees. Some animals wandered to and fro, but none spotted the young man as he crawled along the dry brush.

Nodding over notes that Moira had given him, he decided on one of the easier aspects of her requests. How hard could it possibly be to explore pre-war chain supermarkets? According to her information, there are a few such shops left standing in DC, but the closest is just a couple hour’s walk out along the river between Brookmont and the ruins of American University. She wanted samples of what markets and convenience stores had on the shelves back in the day as well as a report on the viability of these structures as fallout shelters.

What could go wrong?

The closest place to start was called the Super-Duper Mart, one of hundreds of old grocery chains that littered the DC/Baltimore metropolitan area. Have to visit Baltimore one of these days. One understands that Mirelurk was once served with a local seasoning that pretty much everyone liked way back before the big war. I’d like to get my hands on some if ever find out what it was.

The young man approached from behind the building, but noted it as a single-floor plus rooftop machines. Unsure of what the machinery atop the building were used for, he filed that line of inquiry for later. The structure was, maybe, 140 feet to a side and mostly square. If he burnt-out passenger bus to the side was any indication, there’s a parking lot around the front.

From the northern ridge, the young man could see a couple men in barely protective, spiked armor carrying what looked like duct-taped commercial hunting rifles. Not a weapon in any military sense, but the ammunition for such a firearm would be relatively common in pre-war general stores and with modern-day merchants; they were probably cheap to maintain.

Bags of human remains and other detritus littered the parking lot and corpses of men and women hung from the burnt out lamp posts. These people, if you can call them that upon seeing the horror one must imagine they either committed or condone, didn’t seem to care. Who were their dead, victims or worse?

Neither of the two out front had noticed the young man yet, which was perfect. The bus made for fantastic cover given basic human psychology.

Anyone but the most well trained soldier might have started editing the bus out of mind on a hot, wasteland day with the sun pouring through a cloudless sky. Two rifles, a revolver and a combat knife were sifting through the young man’s mind. Which was the right choice? It’s not the first time he’s taken life, nor is it the first time he’s spent so long planning them. The first shot had to count because he’d be under fire on his second.

The appropriately named Railway Rifle wasn’t the most accurate or the most powerful tool in his self-limited arsenal, but it certainly made one hesitate at the sight or sound of it.

Ten meters stood between the young man and one of the raiders who’d just up and stopped, sitting at one of the metal benches. What more could a hunter ask for than static prey?

He lined up the improvised sights, an iron bar and the steam chamber’s pressure gauge; adjusted his aim for how far off he knew the weapon was from the sighting, and fired once.

A single railroad spike left the improvised firearm, made the ten meter distance, and took less than the time it took to blink in removing the raider’s entire head at the neck in a wrenching, guttural tear.

It took long enough for the other guard to realize what had happened that the young man was already making a dead run at him with the combat knife. The raider opened fire with his bolt-action rifle and managed to get two shots off, neither of which hit their mark – embedding themselves in the bus in the near distance.

In the moment before he swung the blade, the young man leapt forward, trying to put as much pressure into the action as possible. The raider screamed and used his rifle as a shield as well as he could. The knife cut into the raider’s arm, but missed the intended target: his chest.

The raider turned, using his rifle as a club and knocking his aggressor over the head. The improvised attack worked, but only really served to relieve the older, grizzled man long enough to miss the revolver growing in the young man’s hand.

It was over and the last man standing stood heaving, throwing up next to the second corpse, his knife forgotten in the dirt and his sidearm between his body and the ground.

It took many minutes for the young man to control his panic and to loot his dead enemies. Each bore proof of their ways – human remains kept as trophies to point out one of the least grotesque examples. He found a total of seventeen .32 caliber rounds and snuck around the side of the building to hide the hunting rifles. Maybe if they were still there when he got back, he could do something with them.

One of them had a Nuka Cola. The young former Vault dweller liked the taste of the pre-War soft drink, but the radiation intake from drinking one almost made it pointless; at least irradiated water hydrated even if it tasted like rotten eggs. He tucked it into one of the two hundred year old Nuka machines outside the market before sneaking inside.

And oh, he wished he hadn’t.

From one side of the building, he could watch from relative safety the occupying raiders walking from fortification to fortification. The place was locked down tightly, but had several glaring holes in the defense that seemed based on the number of people that can watch and patrol a small store.

The young man darted for the bathrooms the moment he saw the last raider turn a blind corner. No escape from that direction, but it was a possible kill zone with little to no chance for alert. God, when had he begun thinking in terms of kill zones and death? Oh, right. It was when some southern-sounding jackass charged into Project Purity and killed his last remaining family.

No… not bitter about that at all.

Over the next two hours, he dispatched four men and two women who wandered into the dark hallway. Not a single one knew what was happening until the soiled blade was halfway through their throats. Ammunition for his revolver and more hunting rifles and nick-nacks. No stims or radaway, but each had some chems on them. Jet or Buffout mostly. One had Psycho. Fuck alone knows what good their guns were all strung out on drugs.

Of the group of ten raiders that called the grocery their hideout, eight were dead and the others didn’t seem to have noticed. The young man slowly crept around the corner and over the pharmacy counter. One raider walking around back there hadn’t seen him and a shadow ducked into the back room.

Shelves of trash and, little useful, medication and supplies. He collected the useful chems and carefully shattered cylinders of Psycho, letting the contents spill out over the counters. Glory be, two syringes of Mex-X! Of the valued chems in the Wastes, Med-X made dealing with bullet wounds much easier on the part of the patient. Could be addictive, but if used properly, there wasn’t much worry of that. Much.

A mini-nuke sat on the back wall, adorning the pharmacy with the possibility of swift, radioactive death. The Kid clipped it to his belt, uncaring if it could end him faster than any raider with a grudge. If there was one solid aspect of pre-war America, it was safety around atomic weapons. No one wanted one going off in their town, so everyone knew how to handle the small ones.

He released the grocery store’s Protectron from its case, instructing it to hunt the men wielding guns in the store. On its way, the young man leapt back over the counter and made quick work of the second to last raider in the deli while his robotic friend dealt a final, fiery blow to the last enemy.

What more, but to grab the freeze-dried supplies and take off?

That morning, Moria found a package and a few torn pages from a notebook on the doorstep of Craterside Supply, the most extensive store that side of DC and her pride and joy. She frowned at not getting to hear about the adventure first hand, but quickly forgot her disappointment in lieu of science and advancement. Grinning to herself, Moira Brown started in on copying the information to her personal terminal.


End file.
